Kingdom of the Seven

by Jon Land

  Blaine pulled a pistol from his belt to join the M16, one in each hand, a fierce scowl frozen on his face. The chopper danced through the air above as if to taunt him. Belamo emptied the last of his clip futilely into its frame.

  “Crouch behind me!” McCracken ordered Karen as the OH-47 hovered lower.

  He found himself staring straight into a pair of .30-caliber barrels. He raised his M16 in one hand and pistol in the other, started to squeeze the triggers of both.

  The helicopter exploded in the air, engulfed in a huge fireball that drove it upward, spun it around, and sent it crashing down in shards upon East Market Street above.

  “What the fuck,” Sal Belamo started.

  The answer came back in a sudden roar of revving engines as a black wave of motorcycles rolled down the grass-covered seating tiers of the Arneson River Theater.

  The Skulls! Karen Raymond realized. Tears of joy and relief flooded down her cheeks. It was the Skulls!

  She picked out T.J. Fields riding at the head of the procession that thumped down the stairs, firing toward the positions of Frye’s gunmen, both those on the bridge and the ones stationed above on East Market Street. A biker at the top had stopped to bring a second LAW rocket to his shoulder. It thumped out and blew the bridge into concrete fragments that splashed into the river channel, Frye’s posted gunmen lost with it.

  McCracken watched as the motorcycle gang members hurled grenades toward the rest of the opposition’s largest concentrations and answered their automatic fire accordingly. One biker was pumping round after round from his M79 grenade launcher. The small brown and white building that was part of the Arneson Theater stage erupted into flames. Bodies toppled out its fake windows.

  “Time for a swim,” Blaine signaled, and the four of them plunged from the promenade into the greenish water past their waists, and waded quickly to the other side under protective fire from the Skulls.

  A larger contingent of Frye’s Fifth Generation gunmen took up positions at the wall behind the Arneson River Theater and opened up with a relentless hail of automatic fire. A trio of Skulls went down, but not before one of them managed to hurl two of his grenades dead on target. The resulting explosions silenced the gunmen and split a water storage tank, its contents washing down over the stage and spilling into the channel.

  “Let’s go!” T.J. Fields screamed, revving his bike.

  Karen Raymond lunged behind him. Johnny, Sal, and Blaine picked up three of the bikes belonging to Skulls lost in the battle.

  T.J.’s tires screeched away in the lead, the front one lifting into the air while the back one drew a black stitch across Riverwalk’s stone-inlaid promenade. The rest of the bikes fell into line behind him in a single-file surge down a walkway barely large enough to accommodate a trio of strollers. In spite of this, Blaine managed to bring his bike alongside T.J.’s as they thundered past a sidewalk restaurant.

  “Keep going straight. Toward River Square!” he instructed.

  “River what?”

  “Just follow me!” McCracken shouted, and took the lead down the promenade.

  He followed Riverwalk’s path up four steps and thudded back down another four. The tangle of covering vines and the branches of cypress trees knotted thickly above him, then cleared briefly as they sped across an overpass just beyond the Hilton Hotel. Enemy fire rained down from gunmen following their pace above on East Market Street. Skull riders kept one hand clinging to their throttles and clutches, while returning fire with whatever weapon the free hand of each was holding. Explosions dotted the upper reaches of the promenade, and two more Skulls fell to opposition gunfire.

  “Shit,” T.J. Fields muttered, and Karen tightened one arm around him, while clinging doggedly to the satchel containing the deadly toxin with the other.

  The bikes roared off the overpass and clambered down the stairs on the other side. The Skull riders sped into River Square in tight formation. Totally contained on both sides, with no clear access from any street, River Square and its assembly of eating and drinking establishments provided an instant respite. But the distance separating the bikers from the start of the tables shrank to barely a yard, and the Skulls had all they could do to avoid slipping over the edge into the river channel as they dodged stunned pedestrians. They passed multitiered restaurants containing both interior and sidewalk tables and featuring all manner of food from Mexican to Cajun, from Italian to Texas steak. Tables and diners alike went flying as the bikers sped along beneath the tight shroud of overhanging branches that formed a protective umbrella over this stretch of the Riverwalk.

  McCracken jerked his bike to a halt just past Jim Cullum’s Jazz Club at the Riverwalk entrance to the Hyatt Hotel.

  “This way!” he signaled.

  “Where?” T.J. Fields wanted to know.

  McCracken’s response was to tear off straight into a sublevel of the Hyatt, the only hotel in San Antonio that actually contained part of the river channel beneath it. He sped across the welcome flat tile, past the water that had turned miraculously crystal-clear from murky green. The crystal clarity remained as Blaine headed outside into a lavish patio lined with rolling waterfalls that created a tropical feel. He thudded up four series of steps, each with a brief gap in between, that ultimately brought him to street level in the plaza fronting the Hyatt, the Riverwalk abandoned behind it.

  By the time T.J. Fields and the others had caught up, large squads of enemy gunmen could be seen closing on the plaza from both directions.

  “Okay,” T.J. raised, desperate, “where to now?”

  “Only one place I can think of,” McCracken told him.

  Blaine kept his engine revving while his eyes gestured at the old structure a hundred yards directly in front of them.

  “You gotta be fucking kidding me, boss,” muttered Sal Belamo, who had drawn up even on his bike.

  McCracken’s gaze fell upon the converging troops of Harlan Frye. “Not much choice I can see, Sal.”

  And with that he gunned his bike across the street toward the Alamo.

  CHAPTER 39

  The lack of the usual tourist crowd on a Sunday mystified Blaine until he slammed his bike through the main entrance of the chapel facing the Grand Hyatt. Scaffolding rimmed the interior of the building’s entire front section. A work crew was busy installing what looked like a supportive truss under the structure’s crumbling roof.

  Lantz Lecolt heard the commotion despite the steady whirring of saws and pounding of hammers. He had just finished working the sandblaster himself and was just about to refill it when a fleet of motorcycles roared into the shrine. He watched thunderstruck as a muscular bearded man and a huge Indian both swung off their bikes. The Indian moved quickly to close and lock the thick, heavy double wooden front doors.

  “Hey!” Lecolt roared at the two of them. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Repeating history,” said the bearded one. “Only hopefully this time the good guys are gonna win.”

  “What?”

  “Listen, friend. What’s outside now could wipe out Santa Ana’s thousands in a heartbeat. So get your men out of here. Get them out of here now. Use the back. If you’re lucky—”

  An explosion rocked the front section of the chapel facade, showering fragments of the restored structure inward. Another portion of the roof caved in and the workers scattered beneath it. The parts of the supportive truss they had managed to get in place gave way, the wood splintering on impact with the stone floor. The scaffolding shook but held.

  “You’re not lucky,” McCracken told Lantz Lecolt.

  General Gaines had kept three troop-carrying Black-hawk helicopters ready on the chance Harlan Frye would need them. All of the choppers had already dropped off the Fifth Generation soldiers who were now massing in the plaza fronting the Alamo complex. Major Osborne Vandal looked up to see one of the Blackhawks hovering in search of a spot to set down.

  There had been throngs of people strolling about Alamo Way whe
n he had arrived with the first of his troops. Their befuddlement had turned to terror as soon as the gunfire and explosions began. Even the most curious fled the scene, a few stopping to snap pictures when they reached a safe distance.

  The Blackhawk settled uneasily onto the plaza. Harlan Frye leaned out from the passenger hold and waved Osborne Vandal to him.

  “I can’t afford to be seen here!” Frye yelled above the rotor wash.

  “I understand, sir!” the major returned.

  “You know what has to be done! Kill them all! Bring down the building if you have to, but kill them all! That test tube cannot leave here!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “God is with you,” he said solemnly, and disappeared back inside the helicopter.

  In his mind Harlan. Frye had already worked everything out. All the helicopters used in the raid would be reported stolen by a renegade terrorist group that had chosen the Alamo for a target. General Gaines would likely be stripped of his command, but his complicity would remain a secret. So, too, would Frye’s involvement. The story would hold, because there would be no one alive to refute it.

  With the test tube’s contents destroyed and Alamo’s inhabitants killed here and now, he would be free to utilize the formula another day. The Reverend did not expect ever to be able to return to the majestic kingdom he had built. He also knew the Seven were finished. But he wasn’t ready to give up. He still believed that God was behind him. He would rebuild from scratch, salvage what he could and move on.

  Another day, another time …

  Turning the Alamo into the grave of Blaine McCracken and his cohorts would insure it. God works in strange ways, and the Reverend Harlan Frye would accept this as His will, as he accepted everything else.

  He strapped himself back into his seat and signaled the Blackhawk pilot to take off as a convoy of blue and white San Antonio police cars streamed boldly onto the scene. Heavy fire turned most of them back, and a pair of RPGs blew two of the ones that kept coming into flaming hulks.

  “Get ready to move on the building!” Major Osborne Vandal shouted, and his command was passed down the line.

  Instinctively, and in little more than a few seconds, McCracken cataloged what lay before him around the interior of the Alamo. The chapel structure had been converted into a museumlike shrine to the famed battle when fewer than two hundred defenders had managed to hold back an army of four thousand. Various display cases dotted a floor that stretched sixty yards from front to back. Plaques memorializing various participants in the battle and portraits of the defenders, along with scenes frozen from the battle, were hung upon the stone walls. With the exception of the floodlights moved into place by the workmen, the shrine’s sole light came from a trio of dangling, period-accurate chandeliers.

  The reconditioned building was far stronger structurally than its predecessor, of course. Instead of adobe, it was built of concrete and stone with a yellowed stucco finish eerily close to that of the original. The building’s remaining windows were simple, yet majestic. Blaine counted seven in all, including the three mounted in the alcove wings that widened the structure from a hundred feet to a hundred twenty at its center. He also cataloged fortified inner rooms in three of the chapel’s four corners, one of which, he recalled, had been the hiding place of the women and children who lived to tell the original tale of the Alamo.

  McCracken called Karen Raymond over to join him with the man in charge of the repair crew.

  “You can still get out through the exit on the left there,” he insisted, pointing to it. “I want you to take her with you.”

  Karen’s eyes swung toward Blaine in disbelief as rounds of gunfire continued to pepper the front facade of the shrine. “I’m stay—”

  “No, you’re not, Doctor. Saving what you’ve got in that case is what this stand is all about. You make it to safety or we fail. Period. Stay with him.”

  Blaine pointed at Lantz Lecolt, whose attention was locked on the eight leather-jacketed bikers taking up defensive positions under the direction of the big Indian. Toting their weapons with them, the bikers used the ladders to scale the scaffolding his work crew had been using until moments ago and rushed to their posts. Lecolt watched as they smashed through the grate-covered windows on the chapel’s front and sides and steadied their weapons on the resulting sills.

  Strangely, all he could think of was that in the original battle of the Alamo, this was the only structure to survive reasonably intact. Time and destiny, it seemed, had caught up with it.

  “Get her out of here!” the bearded man was ordering him, thrusting the woman his way. “Now!”

  “Lantz,” one of his men called, “come on!”

  Lecolt backpedaled slowly toward the shrine’s rear, as if reluctant to leave. More explosions and gunfire rocked the building, sending huge chunks of roof and walls downward, obliterating many of the display cases that featured the memorabilia of the Alamo’s original defenders.

  “Lantz!”

  One of the workmen finally grabbed Lecolt’s arm and hustled him and the unknown woman toward the door built into the left alcove that spilled out near the museum and souvenir shop. The first three in his crew had surged outside when a barrage of automatic fire sounded just ahead of their screams. Two more of his men were wounded and had to be dragged back inside. Lecolt himself got the door resealed and locked, while the big Indian charged over and hurled three grenades through the window over the door. The explosions sounded instantly and the bearded man ordered a ladder to be brought over so one of the bikers could be statipned at that post. Then Lecolt watched the two of them rush forward.

  “How many outside, Indian?” McCracken asked during their run to the front of the chapel. T.J. Fields had almost finished getting an M60 machine gun set in place atop the scaffolding, its barrel perched just over the top of the angular facade.

  “Nearly a hundred, Blainey.”

  “You, me, Sal, and eight bikers makes eleven.”

  “Similar odds as the last time here,” Johnny reminded.

  “Somehow I don’t think we’ll be able to hold out thirteen days against Santa Ana Frye.”

  As if to punctuate McCracken’s pronouncement, a deafening blast blew out the right-hand portion of the front facade. The pair of Skulls who had been pouring a nonstop barrage of grenade and automatic fire from that vantage point crumpled, along with a chunk of scaffolding they’d been standing upon.

  “Fuck!” T.J. Fields screamed, and opened up with the M60 from the other side of the facade.

  Standing atop the highest point of the scaffolding brought his head through the portion of the roof that had collapsed the day before. Another pair of Skulls climbed fast up the ladders and joined Fields, peering over the jagged facade just enough to steady their M16s toward the congestion of troops firing from covered positions within the plaza. Sal Belamo joined them and added the clout of the M79 grenade launcher he had salvaged from the pile of rubble when the central scaffolding had collapsed, the process of breeching, loading, and firing repeated in incredibly rapid fashion. Skulls posted before windows on both flanks drained clips as quickly as the bullets could surge out their barrels, evidence that the enemy was now closing from the sides as well.

  “We need an equalizer, Blainey,” Wareagle said, cataloging what was available to them.

  McCracken was already moving toward the sandblasting machine Lecolt had been poised near when they entered. The main tank had fallen over and was partially covered by the remnants of a display case.

  “How’s this, Indian?” he asked, already checking the hose connecting it to the compressor for holes.

  Wareagle smiled.

  “Buy me some time, Johnny. Buy me some time.”

  The San Antonio police had given up the effort of joining the battle for now, regrouping elsewhere to assess what exactly had befallen their city. No matter, thought Osborne Vandal: By the time they returned, the battle would be long over.

  He slid along the back
of his attack lines, watching his men take up positions ever closer to the front of the Alamo chapel. Fire from within continued to hold them reasonably at bay, especially that of the M60, but the supply of the enemy force’s grenades and LAWS rockets was being rapidly depleted. When certain the men inside the punctured and crumbling fort were out of ammunition, he would order his men to attack from all flanks, just as Santa Ana had done back in 1836. They would storm the front entrance and side exits simultaneously, obliterating everyone inside. No one could escape, no mercy shown.

  The rebuilt facade of the old Alamo chapel was crumbling a piece at a time. Four large chasms had been dug along its upper reach, each impact widening the breaches all the more. Vandal’s ears rang from the incessant fire of his troops.

  One of his men missed the top arch of the facade with a missile, but the grenades of two more rattled atop the sloping roof structure. The explosions coughed twin plumes of debris into the air. Osborne Vandal couldn’t see the roof from his vantage point, but he imagined another gash torn within it, the rubble crunching downward upon the opposition below.

  For the second time in history, the defenders of the Alamo were going to fall.

  Sal Belamo had just climbed down to find fresh weapons when the grenade blasts sounded. He threw himself to the floor with arms tucked around his head.

  “Fuck me,” he moaned, shoving the rubble off himself as he reclaimed his feet and hurried back to the ladder.

  The front section of scaffolding had all but collapsed, T.J. Fields and his M60 alone clinging to what remained. The most recent blasts had crushed one of his legs beneath a shower of debris, but he continued to answer enemy fire without pause.

  “I’m coming back up!” Sal yelled to him, steadying the ladder. The scaffolding wobbled under the pressure of his climb.

  Johnny Wareagle, meanwhile, had thrown himself through a window on the chapel’s right flank where the enemy had mounted a determined charge that had nearly penetrated their meager defenses. He surged forward with a pair of M16s spitting fire at a stream of troops thrown suddenly onto the defensive. He took brief cover within a rectangular, unroofed parapet and spun out to cut down the gunmen who had tried pursuing him.